Enemies

You see the lime trees, the samovar, and the crumpled white suits, and you instantly think Chekhov. But although Maxim Gorky's play, written in 1906 after St Petersburg's Bloody Sunday, has echoes of the master, it exists brilliantly in its own right; what it deals with is not merely enmity between classes, but the factions in the decaying bourgeoisie.

Enmity and division propel Gorky's complex plot. Zakhar Bardin, a liberal factory owner, and Mikhail Skrobotov, his ruthless managing director, bitterly disagree over the sacking of a brutal foreman. When Skrobotov, having closed the factory, is shot by a militant worker, the fissures become even more apparent. Skrobotov's wife and brother look for proletarian conspiracies: others, including an earnest radical and Bardin's actress sister-in-law, side with the oppressed workers.

One of the many virtues of David Hare's shining new version is that it clarifies Gorky's plot and distinguishes between the multiple characters. Hare also pins down the fact this is a society in turbulent transition, and aware that power is shifting. You hear it vividly in the language people use - "we're like some terrible amateur dramatic society putting on a play, and we've all been given the wrong parts." And there is an acute sense these drifting gentlefolk are fulfilling their traditional Russian roles of superfluous drunk, eccentric general, and liberal landowner, in the knowledge that the show will eventually close.

The play is full of historic ironies, beautifully brought out in Michael Attenborough's production; not least that the Tsarist police and lawyers who manufacture evidence of proletarian plots are an intimation of the greater horrors to come under Stalinism. Stephen Noonan memorably turns the assistant prosecutor into a gimlet-eyed fanatic. And Graham Turner as a creepy informer and Sean Gilder as a vain captain suggest permanent archetypes.

In a vast 21-strong cast, however, there are no weak links. Jack Davenport has all the linen-suited despair of a drunken wastrel, and Amanda Drew as his actress-wife drifts through with languorous enchantment. Sean Chapman is the epitome of liberal dither as the factory-owner, while Edward Peel as a worker shrewdly sees through the charade of his warring superiors. The Cherry Orchard implies the impending revolution through its visual symbolism. Gorky's play, less symphonically structured, makes it equally apparent through its unforgettable panorama of a divided class.

· Until June 24. Box Office:020 7359 4404

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